Astral Codex Ten - What Is Going On In IFS?
In my book review of The Others Within Us, I wrote:
Some IFS therapists chimed in to say this was wrong. For example, DaystarEld:
And a therapist on Discord who wants to stay anonymous:
“Lucid-dream-like trance state” was my wording, not Falconer’s, so maybe I’m getting it wrong. Still, here’s a quote directly from the book:
There’s lots of stuff like this, which I interpreted as saying that the IFS work takes place in a trance-like state, but I could be misinterpreting it. I am basically baffled. All of this sounds fascinating, so the first few times I read something like it, decades ago, I tried pretty hard to access this imaginal realm. I never really got anywhere, so I assumed it required the ability to access some special state I’m bad at. But also, don’t you need something like this to be true to believe (as Falconer does) that these demons are real and important? If you’re just telling your patients “make up a neat metaphor for what’s in your head” and then your patient says “okay, I choose to represent my trauma as a demon”, then it doesn’t make sense to - as Falconer does - start freaking out and saying that demons are real and your patients have encountered them. It doesn’t make sense to start learning exorcism, any more than you would bring a bottle of bug spray to the session if your patient visualized their trauma as a giant cockroach. The other therapist suggested a partial compromise:
I like this because it’s flattering to me. And it seems to fit my experience - in order to not feel like I’m obviously making it up, I have to lightning-fast grab for the first concept my brain gives me, which is usually either a set of random syllables, whatever I was last thinking about, or a tiger (it’s tigers surprisingly often!) But even if some other people have so little access to their mental processes that complex metaphors burst into their mind fully formed, I don’t know how you go from there to demons. At this point my working theory is that IFS works in different ways for different people, maybe so subtly that they don’t even notice and they describe it with the same terms. But I’d welcome more input from anyone with experience. You're currently a free subscriber to Astral Codex Ten. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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Unsong Available In Paperback
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Thursday, May 23, 2024
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Book Review: The Others Within Us
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Welp, the demons are back ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
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